Mothers of deaf children in the 21st century. Dynamic positioning between the medical and cultural-linguistic discourses

Abstract

Traditional research examining the communicational choicesmade by families with deaf children tends to emanate from the premise that families engage with either of the two grand discourses on deafness (i.e., the medical or cultural-linguistic perspective). This study investigated hearing mother's engagement with the educational options for their child froma dynamic, poststructural perspective. Three Flemish mothers were interviewed in-depth at the child's ages of 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24months. The datawere analyzed within a theoretical model that describes the positioning process of themothers. This method yielded alternative explanations for former findings concerningmothers' decision-making processes, especially the difficulty of learning sign language as a second language in an effort to provide a bilingual-bicultural education, and highlighted the importance of having rich experiences. It further showed that a bilingual-bicultural position was scarcely available and poorly supported for thesemothers. These findings are discussed in relation to recent international consensus statements on best practices in early intervention.